Office fraud
Nobody likes being taken advantage of, so when it happens once, it's something that you try to prevent happening again. Unfortunately, you come to realise that the perpetrators of the deeds aren't at all invested in the intention of deliberately conning you, wasting your time, or otherwise causing any inconvenience. The overwhelming majority of people who work in office, service, or retail jobs really don't care less about the machinations and difficulties of suppliers or people who provide services - they just do what they're told, get through the week, hopefully get paid, and take whatever free time the universe offers them with a willing glee. Working in a big building for any organisation is one of the most life-sapping, demoralising experiences possible - and only a select few individuals have the psychological mindset to overcome the biological need to escape the man-made imprisonment, and willingly relish being stuck in a box for 50 hours a week. Some of the masses who remain imprisoned tend to create coping mechanisms such as forming close-kit groups in which to bitch about colleagues, attempting to exert control over subordinates using subtle cruelty, and often using external suppliers as cannon fodder when all else fails. I've worked with such people, whose sole intention was to destroy my free will, and I've worked in such organisations - including our very own HMRC - an experience so brutally revealing about the human condition that it left an indelible mark on my psyche.
Meet Art:
Art ( an abbreviation of Arthur I believe) was a civil service veteran - man and boy. He started at the huge Longbenton site when he was 16 as an Admin Assistant (AO) and worked his way up to the heady heights of Executive Officer (EO) - that's two pay-grades over the space of about 35 years. I'd joined the service at that very same EO level on a temporary contract in order to assist with the creation of an army of emergency pen-pushers in a vacant military base to the north of Newcastle. Art was the HMRC system personified - a lovely, lovely bloke in every respect, but devoid of any capacity or desire for change, waiting for his retirement in five years, doing the absolute minimum, deferring meekly to anything asked of him, and never questioning. His flexi-hours were topped up by extending his daily attendance - reading the paper for 30 minutes either side of the prescribed 7hrs 24 mins, and curtailing lunch by half an hour, plus the odd hour coming in early to beat the traffic. This resulted in a monthly excess of about 35 hours, which when clumped together several months down the line meant that Art could take an extra few weeks off to top up the 6 weeks he was already entitled to. You get the idea anyway - it's an exaggerated view of the mindset of millions of people who work in organisations just to subsist, and pass the time before they die. By the way, I loved Art just like everyone else. He was (hopefully still is) a gentle, caring family man, and would never have a word said against him - it's just the system of general disinterest in anything outride the employee's personal frame of reference that I'm trying to draw attention to. Which brings me back to........
I mainly deal with photographing residential property, but occasionally the commercial world requires the services of someone like yours truly. The two worlds are intrinsically linked, the skills required to depict commercial spaces are exactly the same, but the people who are commissioned to shoot commercial jobs are inexplicably a different breed. Photographing a 6 bedroomed detached house in glorious surroundings, with complex lighting, extensive post production, and producing 60 glorious frames - giving away all copyright to an estate agent will probably net me somewhere in the region of £100 after all expenses are covered. A day shooting a hotel or restaurant for marketing purposes - often to poor standards, with an output of 10-20 images - will result in anything between £500 and £5000 depending on the subject. The real-estate photographer is considered as the absolute bottom-end of all sectors of the industry due to some pretty shoddy operators, and making the transition between the residential world and commercial world is almost impossible unless you know the right people. Unless you can talk a load of shite about yourself, you've not got a chance of getting piece of the action, no matter how talented you are. I'm working on it though.
I got a call from a client who asked if I could "take some pictures of some office space" in North Shields, with a definitive quote. I'd done a few in the past, and as it was always just a case of shooting some vacant spaces with a reception area in order to market them online to potential tenants, it would take no more than an hour, and therefore the usual one-hour job fixed-fee.
When I got there, and was met by the building-owner, it quickly became apparent that I'd been either deliberately misled, or was the unfortunate victim of the phenomenon of the lowly office-worker just doing exactly as they were told with no regard to the details, context, or consequences of the request, just to get it out of the way before lunch break.
This wasn't an £80 shoot and grab of some vacant offices - it was a full two days-worth of detailed commercial photography and post-production within a suite of networking spaces being actively marketed online and via printed literature to freelancers and SME's who needed remote meeting spaces, networking facilities, and advanced communications solutions. This was a five grand, full-on commercial job disguised as a two-bed flat shoot. There are a number of ways you can approach this type of event - walk out in a rage, contact the commissioning agent and explain that the fee will be 30 times the original quote, or suck it up and learn from the experience of being duped (albeit unintentionally?)
I chose the latter, and just got on with the intense task of promoting a business virtually free of charge for a multi-millionaire while exhibiting my usual enthusiasm and professionalism.
The best thing to do in these circumstances (and it happens quite regularly with residential work - turning up to a £2m pad thinking it's a 4 bed-semi) is to forget about the perceived injustice, then treat it like a portfolio job and just crack on doing the very best you can. The lighting challenges in this particular space were monumental, as there was virtually zero natural light. When shooting the communal meeting spaces, every single glass booth on the outside had to be lit separately, and integrated digitally afterwards. This meant that some of the images were composites of 20-30 frames.
To add insult to injury, the weather proved to be a killer for any exterior shots (as usual), so I actually had to re-visit in my own time, at my own expense to get those done. In total, I charged £80 plus vat for 4 hours travel time, 7 hours shooting time, and 12 hours of post-production - a great earner of £3.48 an hour before any expenses were incurred. Looking at the company website now shows that they only used two of the whole bloody lot, and elected instead to take completely shit, wonky, fuzzy amateur pictures apparently taken with a phone! I don't know why I bother sometimes. Honestly.
Now for the subject of "once bitten...twice shy"? After writing this one off as an individual event, I was contacted another 2 times shortly after this for quotes to:
1) Shoot in a city centre restaurant over two days including some night-time atmospheric stuff, staff at work, all interiors and exteriors, and some menu shots,
2) Photograph all aspects of a boutique hotel of 12 luxury suites - who charged £400 for a night's stay.
After replying to both with requests for specific briefs so that I could tailor specific quotes based on the time and extent of the work, skills & equipment required, plus the commercial licensing aspect, I heard nothing further.
Mmmmm.
